Oldgrad14097_lm.jpg Ninety-eight-year-old Josephine Belasco (left) gets a pat on the back from Bettie Grinnell while trying on her cap and gown in the main office of Galileo High School on Tuesday, June 13, 2006 in San Francisco, CA. On Wednesday, Belasco will finally get her diploma from the school, which she attended in the 1920s. Laura Morton/The Chronicle *** Josephine Belasco
*** Bettie Grinnell MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOGRAPHER AND SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE/ -MAGS OUT

Photo: Laura Morton

Oldgrad14097_lm.jpg Ninety-eight-year-old Josephine Belasco (left)...

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Oldgrad14135_lm.jpg Ninety-eight-year-old Josephine Belasco (right) walks through the halls of Galileo High School with her son Eddie Belasco after picking up her graduation cap and gown on Tuesday, June 13, 2006. Belasco is finally getting her diploma after dropping out during her senior year in the 1920s. Laura Morton/The Chronicle *** Josephine Belasco
*** Eddie Belasco
Ran on: 06-14-2006
Josephine Belasco is congratulated by Bettie Grinnell while trying on her cap and gown.

Oldgrad14043_lm.jpg Josephine Belasco, age 98, picked up her graduation cap and gown from Galileo High School on Tuesday, June 13, 2006 in San Francisco, CA. Laura Morton/The Chronicle *** Josephine Belasco Ran on: 06-14-2006
Josephine Belasco is congratulated by Bettie Grinnell while trying on her cap and gown.

Photo: Laura Morton

Oldgrad14043_lm.jpg Josephine Belasco, age 98, picked up her...

At 98, she's finally getting her diploma / 8 decades ago, S.F. woman was forced to drop out of high school -- but graduation day draws near

She worked for 36 years as an accountant, enjoyed a long and happy marriage, has a son and three grandkids, maintains her own top-floor apartment on Nob Hill and still goes out on the town with her friends for old-fashioneds and margaritas.

But 98-year-old Josephine Belasco always had one regret: dropping out of Galileo High School. Today she'll join hundreds of seniors of another sort as she dons a white cap and gown, carries a rose with the rest of the girls and -- 80 years later -- graduates from Galileo.

"I always felt bad about it, and I'm glad I finally made it," she said in a deep, gravelly voice tinged with an Italian accent. "I feel like, what's that word, that I'm satisfied -- that I achieved my goal."

Some might think that if Belasco has managed to near the century mark without a diploma, there's little point in getting one now. And Belasco would have agreed -- until a conversation in April with her 33-year-old grandson and neighbor, Marcello Belasco. He asked her why she never got her diploma and convinced her it wasn't too late.

Marcello promptly phoned his father, Belasco's son, Eddie Belasco Jr., 74, to tell him he'd hatched a plan. Nana was going back to high school.

That was good enough for Eddie, who took Belasco to Galileo a few days later to ask how to get his mother her diploma.

"They came to me," recalled Galileo's longtime secretary, Bettie Grinnell. "I found her to be quite captivating. It is an amazing story, and everybody we tell it to says, 'Wow, that's amazing.' "

Grinnell has seen old-time alumni come back now and then, including a married couple who returned just to hold hands near the lockers outside the library as they used to do as high school sweethearts. But she'd never seen anything like this.

Remarkably, the school still had Belasco's transcripts. She started at the school as a sophomore when it opened in 1924. She completed five semesters, then dropped out midway through her final semester.

Because Belasco was so close, Galileo administrators decided to grant her an honorary diploma after a couple of tutoring sessions with Galileo students. And no high school exit exam was required.

"She's probably wise beyond her years, and what she didn't pick up in high school, she picked up in her long and busy life," Grinnell said.

Grinnell ordered a cap and gown in the smallest size for the 4-foot-10 Belasco, and word got out. The press descended, and Mayor Gavin Newsom even named today Josephine Belasco Day in her honor. Eddie says he's trying to get her on "The Tonight Show" with Jay Leno.

Thirty friends and relatives will attend the ceremony, after which they'll dine on Italian food at Caesar's in North Beach. Then, Belasco said, she'll put her diploma in a gold frame and hang it on her wall.

"It mushroomed -- I'm dizzy," Belasco said with a smile on Tuesday morning. "They're making me a legend. I'm in another world. I feel great, but I'm kind of stunned."

She's not the only one who's stunned. The other Galileo graduates -- those of the teenage variety -- said they had no idea a 98-year-old would be walking the stage with them today.

"A 98-year-old? With us? I'm surprised, because I'm 17," said Jeff Chan. After thinking about it for a minute, he conceded it was pretty cool. "It's never too late to get your education. I think it's great to stay active rather than just stay at home and watch TV."

Belasco was born Josephine Germano in Calabria, Italy, on Nov. 1, 1907. When she was 18 months old, her family moved to San Francisco, where her father, Vincenzo, shined shoes. Belasco was the second of five children, and they packed into a two-bedroom apartment in North Beach.

Belasco doesn't remember a lot about Galileo other than walks around the block during lunch with her friends and visits from her strict father.

"He used to leave work to come to my school and make sure I wasn't dating boys," she said.

She remembers liking her economics class, but she didn't join any clubs because she was too shy.

In her last semester, her younger sister, Angelina, got strep throat -- a serious ailment in the days before penicillin. She wasn't expected to live and spent a year in bed. Belasco quit school to take care of her and went to work at an insurance company to help support the family.

Doctors said Angelina's recovery was a miracle. Now the sisters, 90 and 98, live next door to each other (upstairs from Marcello in the family-owned apartment building) and drink coffee together every night.

Belasco married Edward Belasco, an electrician for the city, in her early 20s and raised Eddie Jr. before working as an accountant until she retired at 72.

She sometimes uses a cane to walk and can't hear very well. But otherwise, she is in great health. She carefully plans one excursion every day, sometimes taking BART to Walnut Creek to visit Eddie Jr. or going shopping and lunching in Union Square.

"I have 42 stairs here -- I can only go out once," she quipped.

Belasco keeps busy taking care of her neat, airy apartment, making huge Italian dinners for her family and reading the newspaper every morning. She has strong opinions against President Bush and the war in Iraq. ("The country is getting very wobbly now, don't you think?" she asked.)